


Holding on for Dear Life

by icterine



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, Break Up, Crying, Heartbreak, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-08 21:51:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8864062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icterine/pseuds/icterine
Summary: It turns out that sometimes heartbreak happens in seconds, unexpectedly – and once it does, there’s no dulling of the senses.
Victor’s heart shatters.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally going to be a bigger piece looking into Victor's life growing up into the person he is buuuuut the scene kind of got away from me in a way that made it more suitable for a standalone piece.
> 
> These two better not actually break up in canon or I'm going to crawl under my bed to sob my little lgbtqa+ heart all the way to the abyss.

“After the final, let’s end this.”

He’s always believed heartbreak to be a slow process. It’s predictable, building up from all the small things that keep compiling. Once the actual breaking point comes around, disappointment has already wrapped itself around him like a heavy blanket and he’s too numb to care.

It turns out that sometimes heartbreak happens in seconds, unexpectedly – and once it does, there’s no dulling of the senses.

Victor’s heart shatters.

It takes Victor a moment to understand why Yuuri’s face blurs out of his vision for a moment. He blinks, vision clearing and feels wetness running down his cheeks. Yuuri’s frozen in shock.

Victor raises his right hand to run his fingertips delicately over the wet stripe on his face. The breath he draws in is choked and stuffy and _god_ , maybe he hadn’t missed crying after all. His chest feels like it’s rumbling as the waves of shame and hurt crash into him.

“Sorry,” he chokes out as he stands up, burying his face in his hands and turning away from Yuuri. He leans his forehead against the window pane and tries to draw in a smooth breath to calm himself down and regain control. He needs to talk about this, _they need to talk_. He can’t talk in this condition so he needs to _stop crying, what is he doing_ …?

“Victor?” Yuuri asks carefully, his voice hesitant and soothing.

“Give me a moment,” Victor asks, irritated.

Yuuri quiets down and neither one of them moves. Victor hears him breathing and yeah, he’d rather focus on that than his own raspy breaths. Thankfully the tears stop and he wipes away their traces with his knuckles.

Why does Yuuri want to end this?

It makes no sense. It makes absolutely no sense. They’d been doing so good, they’d had these _amazing_ months together unlike anything either one of them had ever experienced before, _Yuuri had freaking put a ring on him_ so why?

The hurt makes him unbelievably angry. He wishes he was better at expressing it, or maybe even just more confrontational. Maybe if he was, he’d manage to hold onto this.

If he loses Yuuri, he’s not sure if he can recover anymore. Holding onto Yuuri has somehow become almost synonymous with holding onto his last shreds of humanity.

If there’s a flawed human in him but nobody acknowledges it at all, does that real side of him even exist to the world?

Pins and needles spread into his hands and run up to his forearms. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to summon some freaking determination to power through this. He’s _Victor Nikiforov_. If there’s one thing he has, it’s guts, anxiety be damned.

He crosses his arms around his chest protectively and turns around, facing Yuuri who’s still sitting on the bed, blinking up at him confusedly like a deer in headlights.

They’re going to talk.

“Please explain,” Victor asks calmly and grips the fabric of his bathrobe for support. He thinks his chest is going to implode any second from the terror but he can’t let that happen yet, he has to sort this out. He can weather this.

“Uh,” Yuuri mumbles, quiet and dumbfounded. He blinks and his eyebrows knit together as he stares at Victor’s bloodshot eyes.

God, he must look like _shit_. Crying people aren’t pretty.

“I know I lead you on,” Yuuri continues thoughtfully and well yeah, _no shit_. Who spends over 700 euros on a golden ring only to ask to part ways? “I just didn’t know how to break it to you.”

Sweet, innocent, inexperienced Yuuri. Or whatever he was. Victor throws his head back and feels anger bubbling up his throat.

“Did I do something?” he asks pointedly. Yuuri flinches and throws his palms up, trying to appease him.

“No! No, you were great, you’ve _been_ great!” Yuuri exclaims quickly. He swallows and then that sheepish, quiet half-smile is back on his face as he gazes up at Victor. “You’ve been more than I could’ve ever asked for. I know today was… But generally. It’s the best season I’ve ever had by far. That’s why.”

Yuuri’s eyes aren’t shining. He’s not looking for anything. He’s resolute.

Victor lets out a long sigh and walks over, flopping down on the bed to sit by Yuuri dejectedly. He leans his head against Yuuri’s left shoulder, sorrow washing over him. Yuuri takes his right hand and softly envelopes their fingers.

It’s probably pathetic that the one person he wants to go for comfort is the one breaking up with him. Yuuri is too kind to indulge him.

“Are you okay?” Yuuri asks him worriedly.

“I really care about you,” he answers. More than cares, really, but this isn’t how he wants to say those words. “I… don’t understand.”

Oh shit, they really are breaking up. This is happening.

He was _so happy_.

“W-why are you crying?” Yuuri asks him with a numb and broken voice. “Hey, it’s not over yet. We’ve still got tomorrow.”

Oh no, he’s _sobbing_. He’s mortified, hell, he can’t remember the last time he cried this hard. He’s cried from time to time, sure, a little at a time when the grief’s been too hard to bear but not like this. He pulls his hand away from Yuuri’s and lies down on the bed, tugging a pillow against his chest to cradle and hide his face to.

Yuuri lies down on the bed next to him. “Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he tries soothing him quietly and runs a shaky hand up and down his back. “It’s okay, Victor. Aren’t you being a little too emotional about this?” he says and then Yuuri’s voice breaks down too. “It’s really been the best season I’ve ever had, Victor. You helped me come to peace with everything. A year ago… I was at a really bad place a year ago.” The hand on his back trembles and grabs onto the fabric of the bathrobe desperately. “I was scared I’d never feel good about figure skating anymore. You gave me back my love for skating and I’m so happy I got another chance at this. So I’m ready to let go. I want to end it with this.”

Fuck, Yuuri is selfish and he doesn’t even mean to be. He has no idea about the effect he has on others.

Wetness presses between Victor’s shoulder blades. Yuuri wraps himself around Victor.

“Can you let go of this for me?”

All Victor has tried to do this year is let go. Time and time again he’s tried to stomp down his feelings and gracefully back off but Yuuri keeps stringing him along, always close but _not close enough_. A year ago Victor fell hard and fast at the banquet only to be cast aside and forgotten – up until Yuuri had skated his routine. Sure, Yuuri hadn’t remembered, he should let go of that hurt. Yuuri hadn’t meant to beckon him back to him – that had been all Victor’s doing, misinterpreting the signs.

But what about after that? He flirted and Yuuri let him enter his life and his family. He gave Yuuri a way out at the skate off between him and Yuri and Yuuri had fought tooth and nail to keep him around. He’d asked Yuuri what to be to him and Yuuri had shut him down as a boyfriend but insisted that he should be exactly who he already was to appease Yuuri. He’d tried so hard to back off and give Yuuri space, to be professional but Yuuri relied on him, entrusted him, embraced him and _enthralled him_.

Yuuri was selfish. Yes, Victor had let him be. He hadn’t been able to stop his love from bubbling over the brim and spilling everywhere for the world to see. Victor had gotten ahead of himself.

Maybe Yuuri had just tried to indulge him too and ended up deeper than he’d intended.

“Please marry me,” Victor hears himself gasping throatily. Yuuri’s body stiffens around him and Victor turns around in his arms. He’s struck by Yuuri’s beauty, the awkward Japanese boy dressed down for bed, hair sticking out in odd places and plump lips hanging open in surprise. Victor hoists himself up until he’s straddling Yuuri, cupping his face with his hands and holding on for dear life.

He’s not ready to let this go. If it’s going to end, he’s going to end it fighting.

This time he’s going to speak his mind instead of just walking away.

“I’ve given you everything, Yuuri,” he murmurs and wait, _Yuuri’s eyes are shining_. A tiny sparkle of hope flickers in his chest. The corners of his eyes feel wet, or maybe it’s just his lashes. “I left Russia for you. I left skating for you. I strained the relationships between me and the people who’ve stuck by me before. I publically came out for you. I’ve offered you everything and never asked anything back that you didn’t want to give me.” He presses their foreheads together. Yuuri’s breath is hot against his face. He’s quivering.

Victor’s hands on his cheeks feel so embarrassingly sweaty.

“So give me this one thing,” he pleads brokenly. “I’ve given you _everything_ , I’m ready to _keep_ giving you everything and I’ve never regretted a thing so please give me this. Please let me have this. Katsuki Yuuri, after the Grand Prix Final, please marry me. Please marry me and let’s keep surprising each other with everything we do in the name of love.”

The sound of Yuuri’s quivering laughter is like birdsong at dawn.

“You’ll love me even if I won’t win gold? Even if it’s the last time I’ll skate competitively?” he asks and looks utterly relieved. The hand Yuuri has curled into Victor’s bathrobe opens and snakes up to cradle Victor’s neck tenderly, rendering him breathless. “You’ll still stick around?”

“Of course.”

“Then why do you scare me like this?” Yuuri whines and pulls Victor down into a shaky kiss. “You know I get anxious.”

Victor breaks away from the kiss, trying not to let his desperation overpower him. Yuuri’s legs are wrapped around him and he can’t get swept away again, not now. “Are you going to answer me, Yuuri?”

Yuuri beams up at him, fragile but over the moon. Victor blinks, his composure utterly broken in confusion.

“Yes,” Yuuri gasps. “I mean. We can’t really legally, not yet anyway. But in spirit! And, uh, if it becomes an option we’ll talk again.” Yuuri’s entire face flushes whilst he rambles nervously. “And I’m going to say yes then too, so. So…”

Yuuri tugs his shocked form down and embraces him desperately. Victor clings onto him, closing his eyes and breathing in Yuuri’s scent and _he can have this_. He can keep having this. His heart stutters and comes back to life, broken but mended, still cracked and bleeding but cradled and warm in Yuuri’s arms.

“Don’t you ever break up with me, Yuuri,” Victor murmurs softly in Yuuri’s hair.

“Never,” Yuuri replies decidedly and boy does it make Victor’s neglected heart flutter.

“You just tried,” Victor reminds him with a pout. “What was that about? With the timing too, you don’t break up with someone right before the finale, it’s going to wreck you up,” he finds himself launching into a lecture, sitting straight up on top of Yuuri’s hips. “We share a hotel room too, do you get how awkward that is? If you want to break it off, at least cut it off clean, don’t do this whole ‘let’s break up after the finale’ half-heartedness, how could you even think that was a good idea?”

“What… You…?” Yuuri splutters. “You thought I was breaking up with you?”

Victor’s world stills.

“You weren’t?” he asks dumbly.

“What...? No! Not this! I mean, we were supposed to talk about where to go from here but then you freaked out and it took a while but I guess we got that kind of sorted…”

“You said ‘let’s end this’. What else could you have meant?” Victor pries, irritated.

“This coach-skater relationship, not the personal one!” Yuuri cries, struggling to get loose from under Victor to get back up again but Victor pins him down in shock.

“You weren’t breaking up with me.”

“No! God, no!”

His heart trembles. All of the tension leaves his body, making him flop down on Yuuri. He buries his face in Yuuri’s stomach, unable to stop himself from laughing quietly in relief.

“Did you just _propose to me_ after thinking I broke up with you?” Yuuri realises in horror. “Who does that?”

Ah, his body’s overloading from the intensely emotional rollercoaster. Victor feels his giggles crossing over into hysterics. He’s relieved, because everything he’s always been too terrified to fully believe seems to have been offered to him and this time it’s undeniably real. Yuuri is real, so terrifyingly real, and the person he sees in Victor is real too. He’s in love, _so utterly in love_ , and the most unbelievable thing is that Yuuri is in love too and they’re not going to be letting this go. He might’ve thought that he’s been forcibly holding onto Yuuri, desperately craving for the genuine affection and concern for his wellbeing that he’s never had, but there Yuuri goes again, surprising him simply by having the decency to have no ill intentions about breaking his heart or using him to further his career only to cast him aside. Yuuri wants to do this, together, and once this ends he’ll still be right by Victor’s side.

It won’t be an ending. Yuuri is promising him a beginning.

This year has been about helping Yuuri recover. After tomorrow, maybe they’ll have time to help Victor recover too.

Yuuri gently tugs his right hand towards him and places a gentle kiss on the ring before running his other hand’s fingers through Victor’s hair.

“I love you,” Yuuri tells him tenderly, soothing him through his hysterics. “There’s no need for you to doubt that. I’ll show it to you tomorrow on the ice, so please watch me. I won’t let you look away.”

Victor has never been able to look away. He doesn’t know how to tell Yuuri that.

“I’ll look forward to it,” he promises instead, nuzzling further into the warmth of Yuuri’s belly.

His anxious heart settles down. Likewise, Victor thinks he’s ready to settle down too.


End file.
